BAMAKO: Five United Nations peacekeepers from Chad were killed on Thursday when their truck drove over a mine in Mali, casting a shadow over peace talks between the west African state and rebel militias.

The attacks follow the restart of negotiations between the Mali government and six armed rebel groups in the Algerian capital aimed at clinching a lasting peace agreement in the deeply-divided nation.

“We lost five comrades today in the north towards Aguelhok. Their vehicle hit an explosive device. It’s terrible,” said a Chadian army officer, who added that four Chadian soldiers were wounded.

The Malian army confirmed the deaths, condemning “a new provocation by terrorists” which it said had taken place as a ceremony in memory of soldiers killed by mines was underway in Aguelhok, 150 kilometres south of the Algerian border, in the restive Kidal region.

The incident comes just two weeks after four Chadian soldiers were killed when they hit a mine, also in Kidal.

Riven by ethnic rivalries, a Tuareg rebellion and an Islamist insurgency in its vast desert north, Mali has struggled for stability and peace since a military coup in 2012.

The Bamako government and various rebel groups, mostly Tuareg but also including Arab organisations, are seeking to resolve a decades-old conflict that created a power vacuum in the desert north that was exploited by Al Qaeda.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2014